TEACHING WRITING ACROSS GRADE LEVELS -- JIGSAW ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS & YOUR RESPONSIBILITY:
Now that you've highlighted your grade level chapter, work with your jigsaw group featuring members who read Interactive Writing, Awell, and Urbanski and present the most salient parts of your chapter briefly and then generate answers to the questions below. You can also consider any of the videos from the Writing Workshop wiki page as one of your texts for consideration as well. See what you are able to identify in common with your reading and what might stand out as well.
You may work collaboratively on your Google Doc and then choose an archivist from your group to post your ideas directly on your wiki page below. Your ideas should be posted during Class 6 when we will share and discuss them together.
1) What are you learning new about approaches to teaching writing and also writing workshop (especially in terms of how it is different than the on your cluster, grade level, department, or school employs now and/or the chapter that your grade level group read about)?
The following are skills we take to be areas of special emphasis in instruction from which we can learn:
Modeling- the teacher should start with themselves and write to teach, and write in front of the students. By writing, the teacher will gain experiences what it is like to read and write,”We understand the struggles they go through when they write and read.” Then they can give students constructive suggestions when they encounter the real writing problems. Freewriting is not a waste of time. She prefers the freewriting as a way of warming-up, using “daybooks( not a diary or journal)” to record one’s thoughts and allows one to follow one’s ideas without being afraid of making mistakes.
The teachers should also give students more options to choose the topics and genres and allow for a variety forms of reading and writing. In class, the students are having free time to write and read with no censorship or any correction of mistakes.
The teacher needs to track students' writing individually, may be building a writing portfolio for each student. Feedback from both the teachers and peers are important in their writing process, for they need the confirmation and positive suggestions from both the peers and the teachers who serve as their audience in the writing process.
These areas will be more fully developed and discussed in the proceeding questions.
2) How do the approaches to teaching writing and implementing writing workshop presented in the texts compare and contrast?
Attwell and Urbanski both emphasizes the need to offer students time in class to write and to read. Students learn writerly skills through practice. They both also emphasize the importance of writing process--especially revision based on peer conference and teacher feedback.
Unlike Urbanski, however, Attwell places special emphasis on the organization this method requires of the teacher. She emphasizes how teachers must keep track of student reading and writing progress if the teacher is going to be able to provide meaningful feedback. Attwell also places special emphasis on the importance of encouraging students towards literary writing, literary reading, and publication beyond classroom walls.
In addition, Attwell spends a great deal of time discussing writerly and reading "territories." With what genres is she familiar or might she like to try? Who are her favorite writers, and what topics does she like to read about? Attwell spends the first day of class using these sorts of ideas to prompt students to bring their own interests and backgrounds to the writing workshop. Like many of our resources this year, she believes that student backgrounds are some of the richest fields for prompting early writing. -- Chris Mayes
Urban ski, by contrast, emphasizes not publication but pre-writing. For him, developing ideas through brainstorming activities is one of the most important (and under-taught!) parts of the writing process. His concept of a "daybook" contributes to this idea, by collecting thoughts for the student day to day.
3) What questions do you have as a teacher who will be expected to implement one or more of these approaches and the related strategies associated with them?
What’s the most important problem you will encounter during the process of teaching?
How do you teach curriculum while you give students time to read and write what they want?
Do you worry that emphasizing student interests will distract from engaging with harder and more literary works? How do you transition from the commercial fiction students often prefer to more challenging authors like Dostoevsky or Nathanial Hawthorne? - Chris Mayes
4) What questions might you have as a parent of a child who will be in these types of writing classrooms? How will you respond to these questions as a teacher of writing?
What kind of research has been done on how this sort of teaching impacts student performance on standardized tests? This is a really good question, as a teaching, I would have the same concern if I never tried it in class. To be honest, I and not whether there is much research done on it. But the practice enforced in urbniski's class and writing workshop are proved effective. I would recommend the parents to read the book.-Mei
How can I ensure that my child can get enough attention if the teacher emphasizes reading and writing instead of direct instruction?
Grouping and differentiation -If students have more time to reading and writing in class, the class would become more students-centered, group work and differentiation would be an effective way to help the teacher to handle the whole class and pay more attention to individual students' concern.-Mei
What's wrong with just having them read literature, like I did when I was in middle shcool? - Chris Mayes
Reflection on Dorman’s writing process- Mei
Compared with the traditional way of writing, in which writing is just showing instead of telling story and the teacher is the only audience of the story. Students need to follow the formula. and the teacher was advised to check the form, punctuation,spelling, etc. The new model should be under a safe context that students’ writing must be motivated and should be a meaningful task for the writer and serving real purposes such as self-exploration, discovery of new ideas or communication of the writer’s thoughts to others.
The best way to reach this goal is building a writing workshop, for the workshop provides the students with all the needs for the students and also, providing the environment for the teacher to have minilesson on the craft of drafting, revising, editing and sharing and publishing. The students can work independently as well as in groups and they can seek feedback from the both the teacher and the students.
The normal process of writing including prewriting strategies for developing ideas and thoughts and journal is treated as a best way to keep the “treasure of one’s ideas.” Drafting and one-on one conference with the teacher, peer response by using peer response sheet and PQS strategies could be constructive and positive. Publishing the students works serves as a great motivation for students’ writing and also grow confidence in their writing.
TEACHING WRITING ACROSS GRADE LEVELS -- JIGSAW ACTIVITY
DIRECTIONS & YOUR RESPONSIBILITY:
Now that you've highlighted your grade level chapter, work with your jigsaw group featuring members who read Interactive Writing, Awell, and Urbanski and present the most salient parts of your chapter briefly and then generate answers to the questions below. You can also consider any of the videos from the Writing Workshop wiki page as one of your texts for consideration as well. See what you are able to identify in common with your reading and what might stand out as well.You may work collaboratively on your Google Doc and then choose an archivist from your group to post your ideas directly on your wiki page below. Your ideas should be posted during Class 6 when we will share and discuss them together.
1) What are you learning new about approaches to teaching writing and also writing workshop (especially in terms of how it is different than the on your cluster, grade level, department, or school employs now and/or the chapter that your grade level group read about)?
The following are skills we take to be areas of special emphasis in instruction from which we can learn:
Modeling- the teacher should start with themselves and write to teach, and write in front of the students. By writing, the teacher will gain experiences what it is like to read and write,”We understand the struggles they go through when they write and read.” Then they can give students constructive suggestions when they encounter the real writing problems.
Freewriting is not a waste of time. She prefers the freewriting as a way of warming-up, using “daybooks( not a diary or journal)” to record one’s thoughts and allows one to follow one’s ideas without being afraid of making mistakes.
The teachers should also give students more options to choose the topics and genres and allow for a variety forms of reading and writing. In class, the students are having free time to write and read with no censorship or any correction of mistakes.
The teacher needs to track students' writing individually, may be building a writing portfolio for each student. Feedback from both the teachers and peers are important in their writing process, for they need the confirmation and positive suggestions from both the peers and the teachers who serve as their audience in the writing process.
These areas will be more fully developed and discussed in the proceeding questions.
2) How do the approaches to teaching writing and implementing writing workshop presented in the texts compare and contrast?
Attwell and Urbanski both emphasizes the need to offer students time in class to write and to read. Students learn writerly skills through practice. They both also emphasize the importance of writing process--especially revision based on peer conference and teacher feedback.
Unlike Urbanski, however, Attwell places special emphasis on the organization this method requires of the teacher. She emphasizes how teachers must keep track of student reading and writing progress if the teacher is going to be able to provide meaningful feedback. Attwell also places special emphasis on the importance of encouraging students towards literary writing, literary reading, and publication beyond classroom walls.
In addition, Attwell spends a great deal of time discussing writerly and reading "territories." With what genres is she familiar or might she like to try? Who are her favorite writers, and what topics does she like to read about? Attwell spends the first day of class using these sorts of ideas to prompt students to bring their own interests and backgrounds to the writing workshop. Like many of our resources this year, she believes that student backgrounds are some of the richest fields for prompting early writing. -- Chris Mayes
Urban ski, by contrast, emphasizes not publication but pre-writing. For him, developing ideas through brainstorming activities is one of the most important (and under-taught!) parts of the writing process. His concept of a "daybook" contributes to this idea, by collecting thoughts for the student day to day.
3) What questions do you have as a teacher who will be expected to implement one or more of these approaches and the related strategies associated with them?
What’s the most important problem you will encounter during the process of teaching?
How do you teach curriculum while you give students time to read and write what they want?
Do you worry that emphasizing student interests will distract from engaging with harder and more literary works? How do you transition from the commercial fiction students often prefer to more challenging authors like Dostoevsky or Nathanial Hawthorne? - Chris Mayes
4) What questions might you have as a parent of a child who will be in these types of writing classrooms? How will you respond to these questions as a teacher of writing?
What kind of research has been done on how this sort of teaching impacts student performance on standardized tests?
This is a really good question, as a teaching, I would have the same concern if I never tried it in class. To be honest, I and not whether there is much research done on it. But the practice enforced in urbniski's class and writing workshop are proved effective. I would recommend the parents to read the book.-Mei
How can I ensure that my child can get enough attention if the teacher emphasizes reading and writing instead of direct instruction?
Grouping and differentiation -If students have more time to reading and writing in class, the class would become more students-centered, group work and differentiation would be an effective way to help the teacher to handle the whole class and pay more attention to individual students' concern.-Mei
What's wrong with just having them read literature, like I did when I was in middle shcool? - Chris Mayes
Reflection on Dorman’s writing process- Mei